


the man who fell to earth

by alchemistsophie



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV), The Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 03:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9474620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemistsophie/pseuds/alchemistsophie
Summary: who is this wide-eyed corvid prince shedding peacock feathers and tripping over them in his Cuban heels?





	1. the fall

**Author's Note:**

> an attempt at writing. there are definitely mistakes.

**november ****  
**  
  
It’s cold and faintly overcast, the day he falls to earth. The sky is the colour of recently mixed cement and the ground is very hard; most things are when you hit them from a great height.  
  
Not entirely face-first, but close enough. _Good job my nose was pretty flat to begin with_ he muses _but it’s bound not to be happy with me after this. I’ll be lucky if I don’t wake up tomorrow and it’s moved right round the other side of my head, all off in a huff._  
His wings are ruined, he realizes with a start; the dull throb everywhere slowly coalescing into nebulous pains in various places, a good deal more informative of what’s actually been damaged and what of his small body is just ice hot and numb and full of static by proxy, nervous system too rattled to make sense of it all.  
He attempts to stand but the ground follows him up, and before he knows it he’s quite horizontal again. Closer inspection reveals a large wad of twisted feathers underfoot, still connected but only just; a fact that causes the sudden and involuntary escape tiny, pained whimper.  
  
And that’s when Julian spots him.  
  
~  
  
Coming out of a gig you thought went reasonably well to find YOUR SHIT spiking angrily across your lightly crinkled and rain-damaged face is certainly a humbling experience. It elicits a sudden bark of laughter from Julian, too high on adrenaline, and just a little too drunk, to react properly to anything. Stand-up was an odd profession to pursue for one of Julian’s twitchy introversion, devastatingly more intimate and immediate than being in a band ever was. Julian fishes in his pockets for a cigarette, for some kind of relief from the nerves; his whole body feels a little to the left of itself, nothing quite right. _Nothing quite right, that’s one of mine ___. The awfulness of it all, particularly the pun, sends a groan quietly from Julian’s lips.  
A groan that is unexpectedly in stereo, but its twin is unmistakably a groan of pain – real pain, agony– Julian turns his head sharply, a glint of silver flitting across his peripheries.  
  
There he is; profile like an axeblade in the fading light.  
  
He sits hunched amongst the bins, faintly but unmistakably scattering silver light from the sodium lamps, which should be an impossibility, yet Julian’s seeing it with his own eyes, hundreds of tiny scattered mirror points bouncing off the dull plastic of the dumpsters as he shakes with pain or cold or both. He appears to be wearing a cape.  
  
Julian approaches cautiously – why is he even approaching at all? There’s a Tuscany bake ready to go in the oven and a moderately warm flat waiting for him after all – but all caution evaporates when he lifts his head, practically winded by imploring blue eyes under a thick black fringe and even thicker lashes, like spider’s legs. It’s at that point Julian realizes that the little flecks of silver are his blood; sluggishly pooling from hundreds of tiny scratches and cuts.  
  
He’s all angles and points and cheekbones and massive eyes and flattened, sharkish nose and he should look like a goblin or a gargoyle but he doesn’t, he’s the most beautiful thing Julian’s ever seen; a bizarre collision of feminine and masculine, all soft pink lips and strong slightly stubbled jaw. It’s then that Julian notices a second thing, something he should have noticed before if not for the lack of light and the refuse strewn gravel of the pub carpark; feathers. Why are there so many feathers? Some are black and angular and vaguely corvid in origin, and some are unmistakably peacock feathers, albeit twisted and strewn haphazardly beneath the stranger’s booted feet.  
  
His eyes are imploring and childlike but there’s this hint of steel; despite his size and the state he’s in, Julian has the unshakeable feeling this man, this creature, could take him in a fight if he had to.  
  
‘Are, are you alright?’ Julian attempts, cursing at how his voice cracks over the last syllable. ‘Do you need some help?’  
  
The stranger grins, but it quickly turns into a wince. ‘That’d be genius, if you’re offering,’ he replies, trying to play nonchalant but betrayed completely by the look in his eyes, equal parts fear and relief. His voice is deeper than Julian expected, and unmistakably South London, which is almost more shocking than anything. ‘Just watch my back – not that there’s much left to watch at the moment’ he smiles sadly, and his cape shifts and Julian sees them; ragged remains of wings, silvered and sloping gently to where they’re quite attached to his pale, narrow back, exposed where his thin t-shirt has torn.  
  
Julian stifles a gasp, and attempts to gently lift his, odd, alabaster stranger – Julian feels with his entire being he can’t be on the floor a moment longer. He’s so, so thin; Julian can feel the knobs of his spine through his t shirt and lifting him is no effort at all. His legs are surprisingly muscular but hang limply, booted feet knocking uselessly together. He smells like the forest, the tang of ozone just before a thunderstorm, the dusty scent of rain after a long dry summer.  
  
‘You see why even if I could get my stupid legs to work I couldn’t just waltz into a hospital with these on my back,’ he declares, wrapping his arm around Julian’s neck as best he can for stability, and quieter, ‘Thank you. My name’s Noel, by the way.’  
  
‘Julian’ he stammers back, feeling a flood of heat to his cheeks, partly because he completely forgot to ask this strange creature’s – Noel’s – name, and partly another reason entirely, as Noel’s slight body warms slowly, aided by his own. God, he’s a tall man, but he’s never felt so huge.  
  
His flat is not too far away, a twenty-minute walk at most, and Noel may as well not be there, for all the weight he’s carrying. Eyes closed, his eyelashes just brush the tops of his cheekbones. Julian uses his free hand to sweep at the drying silver blood on one cheek, and marvels how it smears and glints between his thumb and forefinger, breath gently escaping from his lips and ruffling Noel’s fringe at the wonder of it. Julian’s mood abruptly crashes, realizing the enormity of what he’s getting himself into – the adrenaline of the gig is finally wearing off, leaving him chemically unassisted to deal with the exhausted birdman in his arms and the keys for his flat he can’t quite reach in his back pocket.  
  
Setting Noel down as gently as he can Julian quickly unlocks the door, silently thanking this bitingly cold Sunday night for being so quiet and devoid of prying eyes. Carefully picking Noel up, Julian pushes inside, shutting the door behind them. Noel stirs and grins and whispers ‘So you’ve brought me back to your lair, Julian? I bet it’s secretly a trap’  
  
Julian immediately responds, too tired and world-view too completely altered to filter his natural weirdness; though he has a feeling this Noel is probably pretty weird himself ‘Yes - it's a trap. You can come in, but you can never leave.’  
  
Noel lets out a quiet whoop of laughter, despite his eyes already starting to shut again from fatigue ‘Well, that’s alright. I haven’t got much on, have I?’


	2. the landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> julian helps noel with his wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bashed this out because i'm procrastinating doing a placement application, based on a picture i drew when i was procrastinating revising for an exam. you're probably procrastinating by reading this right now (they say all things come in threes)

Noel felt bad about mesmerizing him – Julian. He really did. In fairness, he hadn’t needed much; even in Noel’s weakened state it had barely taken a glance. _They call me the mesmerizer, Bobby Mesmerizer_. Noel had always had a knack for getting his own way, which retrospectively seemed a lot more sinister now he knew a bit more about himself and his heritage.

He’d recognised Julian’s face from the fliers – he’d been to a few of his earliest shows down the Hen and Chickens, before all this had kicked off, him and some of his art school mates. Noel had wanted to be a comedian too, back before. Even then, still raw and new, his comedy had a weirdness that really resonated with Noel – in hindsight maybe that was due to his condition as well. Noel was a tinge disappointed, but not particularly surprised that Julian hadn’t recognised him. 

So maybe the mesmerizing didn’t take much doing because Julian might have already fully intended to help Noel – as soon as the thought occurred to him Noel felt more guilty than ever. Noel was always pretty good at reading people’s character instinctively and Julian did seem kind, that anxious type of kindness that hangs back after the others have left to furtively help the kid who’s just had the shit kicked out of him for wearing his mum’s makeup to school.

Plus, the local bin scavenging fox – who’d said his name was Roy if Noel remembered correctly – seemed to have taken a shine to Julian from his weekly spot at the pub, from the brief conversation he’d managed to have before Julian had spotted him and lifted him up with his big strong arms. 

That had been unexpected; he’d hoped for a shoulder to lean on as he tried to get his bruised and aching legs to cooperate, not to be lifted bridal style to Julian’s flat and deposited gently on his double bed to rest, whilst Julian took the sofa. And, perhaps due to Noel’s state, half delirious from the pain and cold, it had done very funny things to him. He felt warm just thinking about it. 

As Noel drifted in and out of consciousness he dreamt of strong arms gently cradling his body; a soft counterpoint to the dull ache of slowly healing wings. 

~

Julian wakes in desperate need of a cigarette. The resulting fall from the sofa attempting to reach for a bedside table adjacent to a bed he is not sleeping on, that is in fact currently occupied by a winged man of indeterminate origin (but presumably somewhere around Croydon) served as swift reminder of the night before. Julian’s need for a cigarette was not lessened by this revelation. 

Julian peers over the back of the sofa and, yes, he’s still there, passed out on Julian’s bed, tatty wings spread out beneath him. He’s still pale, illuminated by the weak early morning sunlight feebly pushing through hastily drawn curtains to land on that too-flat nose, but not the deathly pallor of last night. There’s a slight flush to his high cheekbones that wasn’t there before, healthy rather than febrile, Julian recons. Julian also recons he should be figuring out what to do about the complete stranger, the _injured_ and _winged_ complete stranger he’d brought home the night before, rather than musing about his bone structure. No matter how good it was. 

Julian’s train of thought is abandoned when Noel stirs, a soft noise that sends Julian hastily to his bedside, just in time for Noel’s eyes to sweep open and blink blearily up at Julian. Julian’s brain, having not ever prepared for this exact eventuality, does the best it can on such short notice.

“Good morning? Would you like a cup of tea?” Julian would have preferred the first half of that sentence to have come out as a statement rather than a question, but the way Noel grins up at him through half lidded eyes is distracting to say the least. 

“Yes please, that’d be genius,” Noel replies. He’d got a vague look at Julian the night before, but now he has a proper gander at the owner of those arms. Just as tall and broad as Noel remembers, but he stands as if he is apologizing for it, slightly hunched into a smaller shape. His mouth is wide under the beginnings of a mustache, under a proud beak of a nose. His eyes are the kind that crinkle to nothing when you catch them laughing, but right now they’re darting nervously, unsure.

When Julian returns with two steaming mugs, Noel goes to sit up cautiously – he manages quite well, legs slow but sturdy once again, but gasps a soft wincing noise when his wings are jostled against Julian’s metal bedframe. 

“Do, um,” Julian’s not quite sure of the etiquette when asking about one’s wings, but presses on when Noel looks up at him hopefully, “Do you need some help with those?”

Noel looks over his shoulders and sighs “Well I do heal faster than you I’d imagine, I’ll probably be alright soon, ‘specially since you’ve let me have a little rest here, but these’ll probably never be like they were. Might help if you were to straighten them out a bit?” Noel has no idea if this will make any difference; he’s pretty new to all this. Three months ago he had had no idea of what was on his own back, what was in his own veins; he’d been Glamoured so tight that the only clue he had was an odd tension, an achy feeling now and again, like when you’re breaking in new shoes, when he tried to lie square on his back. Noel had always preferred sleeping on his side anyway. 

Now his cuts oozed as silver as his favourite Cuban heels and his intense dislike of eating meat and odd intuition with animals (which had recently blossomed into full blown conversation) and his dislike of using the Tube, trapped in and breathing metallic air underground, made a lot more sense. 

As for everything else: that made a lot less.

All Noel knew for sure is he quite liked the idea of Julian’s big hands gently lifting and unfurling the mess on his back. And although Noel had always healed quickly, and even faster of late, it was probably a good idea for his wings to be in more of the correct shape, lest they get stuck all wonky. _Though they would match my face alright, all a bit crooked_ Noel smiled to himself. 

“If you don’t mind, of course” Noel adds as an afterthought, leaning slightly forward to allow Julian access.

Julian nods, ‘There’s a shower over the bath in the toilet over there, too” a pause, “To wash off the blood… is that blood?” he gestures to the silver that still streaks Noel’s face, starting to flake off. Dried up it’s less lustrous than Julian remembers it, more like the graphite smudge of an enthusiastic artist than the stuff that reflected tiny mirrors over the pub carpark bins. 

Noel nods, “But it never used to be like that; it looked red like yours, back before,” Noel paused to contemplate if revealing his entire story is a wise move, but decides he’s a bit past that now – he was past it the second Julian spotted him, too injured to conjure up anything beyond a Mesmer, let alone attempt a Glamour. 

“Back before?” Julian prompts, sitting down on the bed carefully where he could access Noel’s wings. Noel’s eyes are obscured by his fringe, but he subtly nods his consent, and Julian delicately starts to work. “Let me know if you need me to stop.” 

Noel really felt guilty about the Mesmer now. _Who knew a man whose punchlines included wearing someone’s skin as a leisure suit would be so kind?_

“Back before the Glamour fell off,” Noel begins, as Julian carefully straightens what are left of his primary flight feathers. It’s not painful; Julian’s big hands are surprisingly dexterous. _Musician’s fingers_ Noel recons – he’ll have to ask Julian if he plays anything later. It’s quite nice actually: soothing. He’d been worried – he’d not had any experience of someone gently handling his wings before. Noel allows himself to wonder what this would feel like, Julian holding and caressing his wings if they weren’t in such a state, and finds he likes that idea. A lot. 

“Glamour? Like fashion? You do dress like a Camden trendy–”

Noel laughs. “Thank you, Julian. But I mean, like faeries? The way they can make one thing look like another thing altogether – nothing’s really different, but because all your senses say it’s one way, it almost is.” Noel made little movements as he talked, like his body was desperate to make hand gestures along with his words but knew not to jostle his back too much. “I used to be a person, because everyone’s eyes, mine too, saw a person. A pointy little person with a cheeky fringe and big weird doll eyes, but a person. Now I’m _this_ ” this time he does gesture, a sweeping exclamation point that encompasses his whole slight body, and does indeed jar his wings. Noel winces and continues, “But I always was _this_ but no one could see. Until it fell off.”

Julian is silent, taking it all in. “You’re – some sort of fae creature?” 

Noel nods. 

“I thought they all died out, millennia ago, if they were even real at all.” Julian finishes quietly. 

Noel shakes his head “They didn’t die. They just moved – and they come back to here all the time, Glamoured so no one will know, and take things that they need, or that they just want. Like the real one, the real Noel.” Noel pauses, and then, a whisper. “And leave things behind. Like me.”

“A changeling.” Julian breathes.

“So I’m up there, up where they are now, looking for him, the real Noel. And some horned bastard tears out a big chunk of my feathers and throws me off the side of their High Citadel. I heal quick, but not faster than a fall to the ground.” Julian isn’t so much straightening out Noel’s wings now as gently running his fingers over the feathers, enthralled. Noel relaxes into it, and continues “And I have no idea how to put the Glamour back on – some stuff’s easy, like Mesmerizing–” Noel stops, realizing he’s said too much. Julian lifts his hands from Noel’s back like he’s been burnt.

“Wait. You’ve been – of course, why else would I have just taken you home with me like that?” Julian stands up abruptly, suddenly seeing last night with a lot more clarity. 

Noel looks up through his fringe imploringly, and Julian feels his anger wane – but it surges back again, along with a healthy dose of outrage, when he realizes what’s going on. “You’re doing it again!” 

Noel quickly averts his eyes, grabbing Julian by the wrist as he moves to leave the room, “No! Julian– I don’t have that much control over stuff like this – I’m really sorry, I promise you this time was an accident, but last night it was barely anything, I swear–”

“What do you mean?” 

“I was cold and scared and I was ready to have to persuade all manner of unsavoury characters to leave me alone or help me, but you– it didn’t take much, honest. You must have wanted to help me. Besides, whatever you thought before you saw my eyes was your own thinking, I promise.” 

Julian nods. He’d intended to help from the minute he’d heard that little gasp of pain – long before Noel had had a chance to look him in the eye. Julian sits back down on the bed, passing a mug of rapidly nearing lukewarm tea that had been left forgotten on the side to Noel and taking the other for himself. “So the other Noel – you were looking for him?”

Noel grins, realizing Julian’s going to let this one go. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Noel takes a fortifying sip of tea. “Because. The night the Glamour fell off, the night my parents realized I why I wasn’t quite right. They were distraught, but not surprised – on some level they’d always known. You know your own kid, after all. That night, I promised them I would bring him back.”


End file.
